Santiago Abascal

Santiago Abascal Conde (14 April 1976-) was the leader of the Spanish right-wing populist Vox party from 20 September 2014, succeeding Jose Luiz Gonzalez Quiros.

Biography
Santiago Abascal Conde was born in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain on 14 April 1976 to a family of People's Party of Spain and Francisco Franco supporters; his family was once threatened by ETA separatist group. In 1994, at the age of 18, he joined the People's Party, and he served in the Basque Parliament from 2004 to 2009. In 2013, he left the PP and helped to co-found the right-wing populist Vox party, becoming its president in 2014. In 2019, ahead of that year's general elections, he called for another "Reconquista" of Spain, employing anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish rhetoric to boost his popularity. In the first general election in April, Vox gained parliamentary representation for the first time; in November 2019, Vox rose from being the fifth-largest party in parliament to being the third-largest.